By Cynthia Gralla

Zelensky and Trump did it. Why can’t you? But you’ll have to star in the right vehicle to secure the votes.

1. Japan: Host “So Do You Me Want Fun Clean,” a passive-aggressive reality show in which you and your team of interior decorators force yourselves into the homes of unsuspecting citizens. (For the tone, think Marie Kondo meets Ivanka Trump.) Underscore your victims’ discomfiture by superimposing on-screen expressions of dismay in wacky fonts. Stand stoic as they nearly weep over being compelled to display their messy bathrooms to millions of viewers. You’ll emerge as an icon of transparency and a champion of hygiene in the age of COVID-19.
2. Canada: Play the lead coach on “Trudeau’s Faux Pas on Ice,” which recreates all of Trudeau’s inappropriate Halloween costumes and cringe-inducing remarks. After his lookalike skates into the rink dressed in an erstwhile racist ensemble or schools a woman on “chairman” vs. “chairperson,” you and your hockey players threaten to beat him with your sticks but ultimately start a curling match instead. It is Canada, after all.
3. United Kingdom: In “From Downton Abbey to Westminster Abbey,” portray a member of the downstairs staff of an English great house who ascends to the gilded halls of political power. Make it sumptuous, glorify the monarchy and class system despite offering a fantasy of upward mobility, and trash the Irish as much as possible. Success will be yours.
4. Russia: Show off your superfly dad bod in “Stranger Putin Things” while fixing elections and stealing COVID-19 vaccine data with your psychokinetic powers. If you can do it all while riding a horse or hunting a drugged tiger, you’ll win in a landslide.
5. Sweden: In “Girl with the Donald Glover Tattoo,” sleuth the question, Which rapper’s arrest will piss off the U.S. the most? Reap your country’s love when you discover it’s Childish Gambino.
6. Poland: No one has experienced truly sublime, television-induced madness until they’ve watched a movie in their native language overlaid with the running commentary of the Polish lektor. A cheaper alternative to dubbing because he covers all the parts, the droning-voiced, male lektor talks through the entire broadcast. The viewer hears just enough of the original dialogue that they don’t change the channel even as their sanity slowly and steadily slips away. Hey, lektor, you’re already the stuff of nightmares; from there, it’s but a short walk to the highest office in the land, my friend. Instead of recreating the dialogue, start suggesting policy reforms during a Steven Seagal marathon.
7. Germany: As a character on “Darklander,” travel back and forth through time to have hot, consensual sex with your fated love, but be very Sturm und Drang about it all. Swept off her feet by the brooding romance, Angela Merkel tweets a photo of you in a Photoshopped dominatrix cap, calling you her “little fetish.” Just like that, you become her political heir.
8. China: Serve as showrunner and star of “President Xi-bag,” an irreverent, fourth-wall-breaking take on contemporary relationships, full of anal sex jokes and hot priests. On second thought . . .this one might not work.
9. United States: Force high school English teachers from across the nation to correct Trump’s tweets for sixteen hours straight as the host of “Who Wants to Be an English Teacher?” The one who doesn’t fall into catatonia or hysteria over orthographical errors wins a million dollars and a lobotomy. As host, you’ll be America’s sweetheart. After all, we all know how much the U.S. supports its public school teachers—just look at the rush to reopen schools during a deadly pandemic.
10. Ukraine: Play a comedian who plays a teacher who becomes president on TV, then becomes president in real life, and finally returns to acting. Have all of the supporting roles played by comedians who became his Cabinet members before returning to the small screen. Dramatize the hijinks that ensued while in office, including a particularly pesky phone call. Don’t worry about the plot because everyone will be so lost in the hall of mirrors that they’ll be begging for the program—and the world—to end. Just please make the meta stop and go run the country.

My books are The Floating World, a novel published by Ballantine, and The Demimonde in Japanese Literature, an academic monograph. I have also written for Salon, The Mississippi Review, Electric Literature, storySouth, and other publications. I live and teach in Victoria, BC.